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Tuesday, June 4, 2013

What’s the difference between DNA and fingerprints? Both can be used and abused

By Marc Jampole

My natural instincts were to disapprove of the Supreme Court
decision allowing police to collect DNA evidence at every arrest. But when I
thought about it more, I saw that taking DNA is no different from taking
fingerprints or mug shots.

Fingerprints and photographs are routinely taken at every
arrest at the discretion of the police. Many if not all end up in a national
database, which can be checked when the police are investigating future
crimes.The information contained in
both fingerprints and photographs could, and sometimes is abused. A police
officer could plant a fingerprint or encourage a witness to select one photo in
an array of suspects.The fingerprints
could be sold to private security or investigative firms.

So what’s the difference between DNA and these more
traditional forms of identification?

Maryland v. King
may mark the first time that I have ever been on the same side as Clarence
Thomas in any Supreme Court decision that wasn’t unanimous (and therefore
devoid of controversy).

Civil rights activists are concerned that a DNA swab
represents an invasion of privacy, which was outlawed by the Fourth Amendment.
It seems no less an invasion of privacy than getting a scan checked at an
airport or having your luggage checked. Everyone gets scanned and searched at
the airport. The DNA check—like fingerprinting—only occurs to people who are
arrested. And in most of the 28 states allowing DNA to be swabbed at arrest,
it’s not for every arrest—it’s only in the case of crimes for which DNA can provide
special knowledge, such as rape.

There is no doubt that sooner or later some authority is
going to misuse DNA evidence. It’s this misuse and the general abuse of police
power about which we should be concerned. Since 9/11, Congress has passed a series
of laws that have eroded our civil rights and invaded our privacy, such as allowing
government to search the books we checked from libraries or to place
warrantless wire taps. Then there are the drone kills.

It should be against the law to snoop into our reading
habits. And it should be against the law to arrest people merely for
congregating at a street corner. New York City’s stop-and-frisk is a disgrace
to this bastion of liberalism. Racial profiling is always wrong. Planting
evidence or keeping exculpatory evidence from the defense—wrong. Beating a
confession out of a prisoner—wrong. False arrest—wrong.

But once someone is in the system, under arrest and turning
a grim face to the camera, I see nothing wrong with taking a swab from his or
her cheek.

What’s so ironic about the objections being raised against
this decision is that the same people tend to support the rights of defendants
and prisoners. What DNA is mostly known for is exonerating people from crimes
they did not commit.

Everything costs time and/or money. Most of the people
speaking against this decision are getting paid by their respective
organizations. To the degree they waste time on bemoaning what many call the
21st-century equivalent of fingerprinting, they are unable to spend time
fighting the real abuses of civil liberties and personal privacy that take
place every day in the United States, some sanctioned by ill-advised laws.I’m not saying the ACLU and others aren’t
fighting these real abuses. What I’m saying is they should do more of that and
forget about DNA testing at arrests for violent crimes.

If it weren’t for the entertainment value, I’d be pleased that Texas Governor Rick Perry is foundering in the Republican presidential race. After all, Governor Perry, who is in an unprecedented fourth term as chief executive of the nation's second-largest state, still might get the Republican nomination for president. If that happens there’s no telling what the voters might be fooled into doing. Just look at how far George W. Bush got.